Salvation
by liaisonwiththecouch
Summary: [oneshot] Being a savior hurts.


I am aware that Seymour/Yuna is an extremely despised pairing; however, for reasons that I will not go into because if I do this will turn into a rant, I am fond of the pairing. If you dislike the pairing to the point where you will refuse to read fanfiction devoted to it, than the remedy to this is simple. Do not read this fic.

Please read and review.

- -

Memories are important to Yuna. For her, as a summoner, there will be no future, and there will be no tomorrow. Memories, are the past, the present, the future. Memories are eternity.

She reasons there was a time when they weren't. Because there was a time when she hadn't chosen an end, when she could imagine a life ahead of her, jumping from future to future as do small children. But that lies beyond the reach of her recollection, and it would probably hurt too much to remember anyway.

"People will remember you forever, Lady Yuna."

Memories are salvation.

- -

Seymour has no memories. For him, salvation lies in the future. But, he reasons to her, smiling his odd smile, that probably counts because it's only a past that hasn't happened yet.

Yuna doesn't like his logic.

- -

"Is he really that evil?" she wonders once, half to herself.

"He wants to kill everyone!" Tidus' voice rises, and his eyes are sharp and flinty. "Of course he's evil," he says, subsiding with some guilt as he sees her reproachful face.

"He wants salvation for the entire world, for all of Spira," she whispers to the fire, watching it dance, but she understands Tidus' prejudice. Tidus hates to be alone. The thought of the entire world, dwindling around him till he is all that is left terrifies him. "Instead of one person going forth alone, everyone going, hand in hand."

-

She does speak to him, the day before the wedding. An odd feeling rests in her chest; she wonders if it is hate or fear or anxiety or love, or some combination.

"You're beautiful," he says awkwardly, but he sounds as if he knows it's what he's supposed to say but what he really wants to say he cannot express.

"Maester Seymour," she says, almost sad, "I will save you," and she takes out her staff.

He stops her easily, grasping one thin wrist delicately, as if afraid to break it. He lays a gentle finger on her lips and smiles his little polite smile.

"Salvation," his face simultaneously ancient and infantile, "is a matter of opinion."

He leaves. She watches.

- -

At night she hears crying, and when she lifts her head drowsily there is a child in her room. He cries in her lap and speaks to her of fear and endings and eternity. She soothes him and kisses his forehead.

In the morning the tearstains are morning dew from her open window and no one is there. She weeps without knowing why and Seymour enters. He is hesitant and awkward, approaching her as if he will startle and flee at the slightest provocation. He draws near and hesitantly kisses her forehead.

She stops crying and looks up, but he's already gone.

- -

She tries again, now a young bride. She fails, because her guardians dying is only releasing them to i his /i salvation, and she won't let him have them. Selfishness is not always destructive.

He kisses her, still hesitant and nervous. She stares at him numbly and wondering how the child died and never grew up, hiding behind some demon's mask. She watches him, because emotion has blossomed onto his face like some rare unfolding flower in a cold home, and she wonders if she could warm away the mask and let it bloom forever. But flowers die fast.

It's already dead when she falls, though she tells herself there is a memory of him watching her, with regret and longing hiding in his eyes. It's a lie. Yuna's eyesight is average, nothing more, and she was too far away to see anything that might have been there, or might not. She has never lied to herself about memories before. It hurt too much. She wonders why now it soothes away all her pain.

- -

She sends him, resigned and silent, wondering why she has to kill a child that just awoke. But if she goes to see him, see his face in a world of memories, it won't be him. It will be the child that died long ago, longing for a mother, and woke again to another.

"You're beautiful," he says, though his mind is drifting as his body dissolves. He sounds like he means it this time, and Yuna wants to break down and sob because of it. Without losing his never-fading little smile, he says, "You've taken away Spira's salvation."

She wants to touch him; she doesn't.

"Salvation is a matter of opinion," and her voice is not ragged with tears.

He smiles for real, once.

Salvation.


End file.
